NEW YORK - Hundreds of blue-clad climate activists halted traffic in New York's Financial District on Monday, symbolically “flooding” Wall Street in a more militant sequel to Sunday's feel-good, 400,000-person march through midtown Manhattan.
 Isolated arrests at Wall St. protest
NEW YORK — Hundreds of blue-clad climate activists halted traffic in New York’s Financial District on Monday, symbolically “flooding” Wall Street in a more militant sequel to Sunday’s feel-good, 400,000-person march through midtown Manhattan.
While the protest started peacefully, tensions rose abruptly around 1:20 p.m. after several officers apprehended a protester, knocking him to the ground.
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Even after that, though, police left the great bulk of the protesters alone, even as the activists remained sitting in the middle of the street.
Al Gore and Ban Ki-moon were nowhere to be found this time. But as with Sunday’s VIP-studded protest, Monday’s demonstration was a call by greens for the world to act on climate change — just before President Barack Obama addresses world leaders on the topic at Tuesday’s U.N. summit.
Mayor Bill de Blasio had taken part in Sunday’s march, and police initially appeared reluctant to make arrests Monday, even when some of the activists sat in the street. But officers popped the protesters’ 15-foot “carbon bubble” balloons and told people to get off the approximately 10-foot-high ledges on nearby buildings. Jostling broke out between protesters and police after officers took the one activist into custody.
Chanting a standard activist slogan — “This is what democracy looks like!” — protesters swarmed around businessmen and double-decker buses filled with confused tourists, not far from the Financial District’s iconic “Charging Bull” statue. Unlike Sunday’s march, which included no acts of civil disobedience, Monday’s activists came prepared to risk arrest.
They also held signs with slogans like “Capitalism = climate chaos” and “Carbon tax the ecocidal maniacs.”
At one point, protesters began singing Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
The New York Times estimated the crowd at more than 1,000.
The protesters said they were objecting to the role that Wall Street — and corporations that embrace fossil fuels — play in driving global warming. The “flood Wall Street” event was meant to invoke memories of Hurricane Sandy, the massive storm that flooded parts of Lower Manhattan in late 2012.
The demonstration included some hallmarks of the Occupy Wall Street movement, including the so-called human microphone, in which activists amplify the voice of the speaker by repeating his or her words en masse.
While most participants appeared to be younger than 40, several were older. Sue Johnson, 59, said this was the first time she had participated in a protest.
“I feel like if I’m starting to think that way — wanting to be involved in a different way — than other people are too,” she said. “I think this has just gone on too long. Too much unemployment. People are trying to find alternative ways to express themselves out of frustration.”
“I came out here because I think, in order to address climate change, which is the most pressing issue facing humanity, that we actually need to change the system,” said Matthew McHale, 31.
Some sardonic Twitter users mocked protesters for photographing the demonstration with their iPhones — that symbol of American consumer culture. “Al Gore agonizes from his private jet, wondering what more he could do,” another critic tweeted.
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Monday, September 22, 2014
Arrests begin at Wall Street protest
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